A not so strange silence: why qualitative researchers
should respond critically to the qualitative data
archive.

Abstract:

A driving force behind the establishment of a qualitative data
archive in the United Kingdom has been the oral historian, Paul
Thompson. He has complained that there is a 'strange silence'
among qualitative sociologists on re-analysis, and that many have been
reluctant to deposit data. The first part of the paper suggests that the
common ethical and practical objections can be overcome in establishing
an archive in Australia. However, there is a more serious underlying
ideological objection: that archiving promotes and institutionalises a
narrow empiricist version of qualitative research. The rest of the paper
makes this case by examining teaching materials on a British website, by
reviewing Thompson's arguments, and by considering some examples of
re-analysis by sociologists. It is argued that qualitative researchers
should respond critically, but that it is possible to address and
overcome these problems when developing an Australian archive.

Name: Australian Journal of Social Issues Publisher: Australian Council of Social Service Audience: Academic Format: Magazine/Journal Subject: Sociology and social work Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2009 Australian Council of Social
Service ISSN:0157-6321

Issue:

Date: Spring, 2009 Source Volume: 44 Source Issue: 3

Topic:

Event Code: 290 Public affairs Advertising Code: 91 Ethics

Product:

Product Code: 8525301 Historians NAICS Code: 54172 Research and Development in the Social Sciences and
Humanities

Sociologists conducting qualitative research in Britain have not
responded with enthusiasm to the opportunities afforded by the
qualitative data archive (i.e. Qualidata) established in the early 1990s
(Corti et al. 2000). A considerable amount of data has been archived,
but this covers only a tiny proportion of qualitative research projects
pursued each year, and a limited range of topics. Researchers have been
asked to submit data as a condition of obtaining funding from the
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Few do so, partly because
depositing data is not yet a condition for obtaining further grants and
it is possible to decline politely on ethical grounds. Although they
have put on a brave face, those enthusiasts who have argued that the
archive will improve the scientific standing of qualitative research no
doubt feel slightly disappointed about the lukewarm response. Paul
Thompson (2000), the oral historian who has done most to establish and
promote the archive, has criticised sociologists for having little
interest in preserving and re-analysing data. He describes the lack of
discussion in qualitative methods texts as a 'strange
silence'.

This paper responds to these criticisms in the context of proposals
to establish a national qualitative archive in Australia. It will start
by considering the ethical and practical arguments that are often given
for not participating. It will be suggested that, although these
'issues' should not be discounted as foot-dragging, they could
be overcome by more generous levels of funding to support the
bureaucratic work of obtaining consent and depositing data. The second
part of the paper will discuss what may be a more serious underlying
objection that puts off, and even alienates, many qualitative
researchers. This is that the archive, along with the current system of
funding social science, promotes a narrow, empiricist understanding of
collecting and analysing data, even though it pays lip-service to the
diversity of qualitative research. The next section will argue that,
despite the undoubted value of archiving and re-analysis for some
purposes, Paul Thompson as an historian does not appreciate how data is
used in sociology. It will be suggested that sociological research
involves applying different theoretical frameworks to data, so there is
something problematic about the search for objective or cumulative
knowledge. The final section will consider these general arguments
through examining part of a data set and surrounding documents deposited
in the British archive. The overall argument will be that an Australian
archive has the potential to be useful for sociological purposes, but
the problems may outweigh the benefits.

Ethical and Practical Objections

Most objections to the qualitative data archive in Britain have
been on ethical grounds. A common argument is that data has been given
to a particular researcher, based on a personal relationship, for
analysis and publication by that researcher. When deposited in a public
archive, it would be possible for another researcher to use the same
data for different purposes, even to the extent of presenting the
original interviewee in a negative light. Another view would be that the
risks are exaggerated in the first place: there is little danger of
harming anyone in publishing anonymised qualitative data whether in a
journal article or in a data archive (Travers 2005, Dingwall 2006). To
put this another way, the benefits of doing research, and maintaining an
open society where people publish and read empirical studies, outweighs
the low level of risk in most projects. Whether or not one agrees with
ethics regulation, social scientists asked to deposit data in the
archive commonly refuse on ethical grounds (Corti et al. 2000).
Inevitably, those working in archives have proposed bureaucratic
solutions: more consent forms for interviewees to sign and procedures
whereby the original researchers can vet secondary analysis.

There have also been objections on practical grounds. The
qualitative data archive in the United Kingdom requires researchers, as
a condition for receiving funding, to deposit data obtained in the
project. The rules require a certain amount of data to be submitted in a
particular format, along with a guide for users and various statements
and forms. This all takes time (Hammersley 1997: 134) and many
researchers cannot see the benefits that follow from depositing data
(1). The most effective way to overcome this objection, and generate
support and perhaps even enthusiasm for the archive, would be to pay
researchers generously for their time. There is a certain irony in that
ethics review processes (resented by many qualitative researchers for
similar reasons) have been successful because they can impose sanctions
on researchers; whereas the archive cannot, at the moment, force
researchers to overcome their ethical objections.

Ideological Objections

Focus groups with Australian qualitative researchers about
archiving have shown that ethical, and to some extent practical issues,
are central concerns (Broom et al. 2009). There may, however, be other
issues that are more difficult to articulate but perhaps more
fundamental in understanding why many researchers have been reluctant to
deposit data. These have to do with a perception that academic freedom
has been gradually eroded as funding has been removed from universities
and given to the Research Councils. It should be remembered that, in
Britain, the Social Science Research Council was replaced by the ESRC,
for political reasons (Halsey 1989). The purpose of the new agency was
to fund 'useful', apolitical research, using methods that
managers in government agencies could understand, resulting in concrete
findings and recommendations. Sociological research in Australia also
has to be packaged in this way, even though many of those applying for
grants understand the purpose of producing knowledge differently.

There are researchers in Australia with strong political views,
feminists and queer theorists for example, who have stopped applying to
the ARC because they know that research on these topics will not get
funded. They are well aware that the Excellence in Research for
Australia initiative (ERA) will concentrate funding in universities that
obtain ARC grants. More often, researchers participate in the heavily
bureaucratic process without enthusiasm, because they have to translate
what they really wish to accomplish into the common denominator,
empiricist, policy-relevant projects favoured by panels. Consider, for
example, how a researcher with constructionist epistemological
assumptions feels when asked to present academic work as producing a
list of 'key findings' that lead to 'impacts' and
'outputs'. Constructionism is a defensible and useful
methodological position that should be distinguished from epistemic or
moral relativism (for discussion, see Hughes and Sharrock 1996). It
would, however, be foolhardy to submit an application to either the ESRC
or ARC that makes a strong constructionist or relativist case about some
area of government policy. Fortunately, any analytic approach can be
watered-down and re-packaged so that it appears to employ
straightforward methods, resulting in clear-cut findings that can inform
policy recommendations. Many researchers accept these constraints, and
'play the game'. Others become alienated, which means that
they may respond to requests to deposit data without enthusiasm,
especially if the archive seems to promote or endorse empiricism.

Those associated with the British site would probably want to see
it as theoretically neutral, and some efforts have been made to
acknowledge the diversity of social research. To give one example, the
archive has produced a teaching guide which discusses, and provides
examples of, seven types of interviewing. Students are told that many
types of interviewing are informed by constructionism:

In this view, all participants in the interview are agents and
meanings are subjectively 'constructed', not objectively
'found'. The purpose is to explore co-constructed identities
and social worlds, not to ascertain facts. This constructionist
viewpoint informs many of the interview types described here ... (ESDS
2009).

In addition, Qualidata holds workshops on 'challenging'
data. This probably means re-analysing data sets using different
theoretical frameworks. Moreover, one can find contextual statements for
projects that are influenced by critical theory, and cite theorists such
as Pierre Bourdieu or Michel Foucault who have been critical towards
empiricism. How can one possibly come away with the impression that
Qualidata, like the ESRC in general, institutionalises an empiricist or
positivist understanding of qualitative research?

The answer is, unfortunately, all too easily. The teaching guide
offers what many university-based researchers would consider a limited
and misleading introduction to qualitative research. There are mixed
messages, so even though we are told in the following paragraph that
qualitative researchers produce different types of knowledge, the last
sentence implies that all interviewers employ sampling techniques
associated with the positivist tradition:

Although this passage acknowledges a variety of interview
'styles' or frameworks, it seems significant that most
emphasis is placed on the procedures employed in oral history
interviews. There has been little consultation with sociologists in
traditions that produce different forms of knowledge when designing
these exercises. This makes it possible to describe theoretical
frameworks reductively in terms of interviewing style or technique as in
the following student exercise:

Students should work individually or in pairs. Give each student a
transcript.

1. What interviewing style/s can you identify in this transcript?

2. If more than one, what would you say was the most dominant
technique?

3. Provide justification and evidence for your answers (ESDS 2009).

There is nothing wrong, in itself, about asking students to
describe how questions are phrased in say, a feminist and life history
interview. This does not, however, do justice to qualitative research as
an academic field. It may suggest to students or teachers that
theoretical differences can be exaggerated, or do not matter, since
styles can be combined in the same transcript. This is unfortunate,
since this archive claims to promote an understanding, and appreciation
of, qualitative research.

Whereas the teaching guide at least mentions constructionism, a
more powerful message is conveyed by the cumulative effect of contextual
statements that present qualitative data as if it represents objective
findings, leading to 'impacts' and 'outputs'. As is
common in grant proposals, discussions of methodology are almost
completely absent from these statements. Some do cite critical theories,
but they are not critical in spirit (for an example of a genuinely
critical response to empiricism, see Bourdieu et al. 2000). Many
theoretical traditions, including interpretive approaches such as
ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, but also critical traditions
in ethnography and discourse analysis, are not acknowledged in the
teaching guide or represented in the archive.

The usual tactic of those building new paradigms in social science
is to incorporate or ignore alternatives. This is arguably how to
understand institutions that fund research such as the ESRC and ARC.
They promote one way of conducting and understanding research, while
claiming to respect intellectual diversity. This tacit or explicit
support for empiricism may not be the main reason why qualitative
researchers have been reluctant to deposit data in the British archive.
However, some kind of ideological response, which may simply amount to
resentment at being regulated, may underpin and strengthen ethical and
practical objections.

Re-Analysing Data in Sociology: Conceptual Considerations

The editors of this special issue have suggested that debates about
archiving enable us to examine our assumptions as qualitative
researchers. This seems a useful way of approaching these issues,
especially since the British archive has arisen, in part, due to the
efforts of an oral historian who is convinced about the value of
archiving and re-analysis in his own discipline, and cannot understand
why there has been little interest among sociologists (Thompson 2000).

Thompson is justly proud of having conducted an oral history study
with colleagues at the University of Essex. He preserved the material,
and made it available for analysis by different cohorts of graduate
students. He points to the benefits that flow from re-analysing data:
from subjecting the same data set to a different interpretation or
theoretical perspective. He also suggests that, when researching any
topic, it would be useful to be able to consult data collected by other
researchers. Thompson has used this purely intellectual or scientific
argument in lobbying for the formation of a data archive in Britain
(Thompson and Corti 1998). Although there is some common ground, it can
be distinguished from the naively empiricist view advanced in some parts
of the Qualidata website that systematically reviewing the evidence from
previous studies will lead to an improvement in government services.
Thompson raises some interesting and difficult issues and deserves a
response.

This section will, firstly, review Thompson's argument,
drawing on his (2000) paper published in Forum Qualitative Social
Research. It will then attempt to show differences between
Thompson's assumptions about the cumulative character of social
enquiry and the value placed by sociologists in theoretical argument.
The section will also consider the case of conversation analysis to show
that a data archive already exists for at least one sociological
tradition, and there is hardly a 'strange silence' about
re-analysing data.

Thompson's argument

Thompson has made a significant personal contribution in
establishing a qualitative archive in Britain. As an oral historian, he
is genuinely puzzled that sociologists are reluctant to share their
data:

As qualitative researchers, we love to meet and exchange ideas. But
we are considerably less at ease about sharing our material. Quite often
through our work at Qualidata we encounter sociologists who seem almost
bonded to their own ethnographic fieldwork notebooks or interviews,
feeling that nobody but themselves could interpret them sufficiently
well or share the intimate understandings that they have of their
informants ... So what is the root of this reluctance to draw on
material created by other researchers? Is it simply an unspoken
inhibition, a feeling that we may be cheating when not creating our own
data? Or are there likely to be such difficulties in using material
created by other people that it is scarcely worth the time to try
looking at it? (Thompson 2000: 2).

These are good questions, and will be considered later in this
paper. For now, however, it is worth noting that Thompson finds other
aspects of sociological inquiry equally strange. He cannot, understand,
for example, why qualitative and quantitative researchers cannot work
together:

... it is difficult to see any convincing intellectual or
methodological justification for not attaching, as a regular practice,
sub-samples of qualitative interviews to [national longitudinal
surveys[. My experience has suggested that it will need a shift of
attitudes on both sides, and in particular a greater mutual respect and
consideration for different research traditions. But the potential would
be enormous. It would allow quantitative sociology to become surer of
its sample base and its interpretations of informants' behaviour,
and also far richer in its power of illustration. It would give
qualitative sociologists the chance to make controlled comparisons
outside their own group of interviewees and to test their hypotheses on
convincing samples (Thompson 2000: 12).

Many sociologists, including prominent theorists, have similar
views, and would like the theoretical and methodological differences
inherited from the past to disappear, so that the discipline finally
becomes a normal science (11). The difficulty with such views is that
there really are incommensurable paradigms. Sociology is a diverse
discipline, founded on philosophical debates about the best way to
produce knowledge. This is widely recognised, both in introductory
texts, including the Qualidata teaching guide, and in the fact there are
long-standing debates between different theoretical traditions, and
distinctive research literatures. Moreover, the fractious nature of the
discipline is only embarrassing if one expects it to become like natural
science (the Durkheimian, positivist project). An alternative view is
that the debates and divisions generate insights, including
methodological advances. They constitute sociology as an academic
discipline.

Qualitative sociologists and cumulative inquiry

Once one accepts that sociology is a multi-perspectival discipline,
it becomes possible to understand why many qualitative researchers have
been reluctant to contribute to the British archive. This is because it
is presented by Thompson as a means of testing hypotheses and arriving
at objective knowledge. This is meant to happen, firstly, by researchers
checking their findings and interpretations against the data obtained in
previous studies and, secondly, because any study will be subject to
critical examination by future researchers. It seems significant that
Thompson presents the research process as a collective enterprise in
which researchers are most likely to 'multiply' rather than
challenge or subvert the original findings:

There are, in short, many very important gains from re-analysis. At
the start of a research project, it can be invaluable in providing a
sense of the topics which can be successfully covered in interviewing,
and therefore make the pilot stage of the new project both more
effective and also much swifter. At a later stage a comparable interview
set may also provide a crucial wider sample base for testing the
interpretations which are emerging. Finally, by making your research
data available to re-analysis by others, you may strikingly multiply the
outcomes from your research through the publications of others from the
same material which you have created (Thompson 2000: 11).

It is possible to conduct historical research that is informed by a
variety of epistemological positions including positivism,
interpretivism and postmodernism (see, for example, Jenkins 1991).
However, most historians see themselves as producing objective
knowledge, through critical engagement with previous studies. Certainly,
those who have used the oral history data-base established by Thompson
share a common set of theoretical and methodological assumptions. The
studies described in his paper are all concerned with developing and
refining hypotheses, or developing new questions that do not challenge
or disrupt the original project. This can also happen in sociology, but
there is considerably more scope for theoretical disagreement, both in
collecting and interpreting data.

This could be demonstrated in many ways, but a ready to hand
example can be found in a recent study about quality assurance in the
British public sector (Travers 2007). This was based largely on original
data collected through interviewing those conducting inspections for
government agencies, and quality managers in organisations such as
schools and hospitals. There is, however, one chapter, discussing
responses to bureaucracy and 'red tape', that drew on
interviews with professionals, but also on data published in two other
studies (Harrison and Dowswell 2002; Sommerlad 1999).

In re-using this data, the researcher wrote an introduction to the
source study (what might be called, using the language of the archive, a
re-contextualisation statement), before developing his own argument. The
data from Harrison and Dowswell (2002) was an interview with a General
Practitioner (GP) complaining about evidence-based medicine as creating
a bureaucratic burden. These authors would probably agree with the
analysis, although the theme was not central to their own study of
changes in GP practices (iii). It seems likely, however, that Sommerlad
(1999) would take issue with the interpretation of her study about the
response of legal aid lawyers to franchising. She had used the
interviewee's comments about facing 'overwhelming'
burdens as part of a politically-driven argument against state
regulation. The re-analysis of this and other materials tries to show
how some professionals have ideological objections to attempts to
measure their output without siding with this viewpoint. In fact, the
chapter suggests that one should respond to claims about
'overwhelming burdens' with some scepticism. Most
professionals experience frustration and irritation in coping with
'red tape', but the burdens are not overwhelming (iv).

In writing this chapter, and the study as a whole, I was not
seeking as a sociologist to produce objective or cumulative knowledge.
It should be apparent, for example, that quality assurers and many
professionals affected by their activities have opposing views of
quality assurance. As described in the study, quality assurers see these
procedures as vital to raise the performance of organisations. By
contrast, the professionals who deliver services often view them as
burdensome or ritualistic (Power 1997). Because of this one might
conclude that it is not possible to arrive at an objective account: that
any data deposited in an archive will be interpreted differently by
proponents and critics.

Interestingly, while the data sets from several studies about
public sector work and organisations have been deposited on the British
archive, most of those sampled do not contain complaints about 'red
tape' or poor management. This illustrates the difficulties
involved in using an archive to make cumulative findings. Perhaps the
underlying problem is that all knowledge is contextual and locally
subject to interpretation, whereas empiricists assume one can easily
make objective findings about social groups and organisations.

The case of conversation analysis

Another response to Thompson might be that, as an historian, he
does not appreciate the diversity of research methods employed by
sociologists or how different traditions produce cumulative findings
working within a particular set of theoretical and methodological
assumptions. It would be possible to make this case through contrasting
different varieties of ethnography and discourse analysis (see, for
example, Travers 2001 or Wooffitt 2005). For the purposes of this paper,
conversation analysis is worth considering, since it illustrates that
re-analysis does take place in one tradition, and there is considerable
methodological discussion (and so no 'strange silence'). It
also illustrates a weakness of the archive in not acknowledging the
purposes of different analytic traditions.

Conversation analysis has become a major field at the intersection
of sociology and linguistics, which has developed a distinctive
methodology for studying everyday and institutional interaction (see,
for example, Ten Have 1999). The early work was concerned with building
up a cumulative understanding of mechanisms in everyday conversation,
based on carefully transcribing what could be heard on audio-tapes.
There was, initially, no need for an archive since any data could
equally well provide findings. However, certain pieces of conversation,
especially those recorded and transcribed in great detail by Gail
Jefferson are still used in workshops teaching this research method. One
can, moreover, make new findings in any piece of data: it depends on
developing an analytic sensitivity to what one hears on an
audio-recording.

As conversation analysis has developed, there has been more
emphasis on analysing interaction in institutional settings. This data
is also examined and re-analysed at workshops. However, one can
exaggerate the extent to which conversation analysis is a closed pursuit
only available to those working inside the tradition. In common with
natural science, there is a culture of publishing the raw data used to
make findings. It is, therefore, possible to develop an argument through
re-analysing the transcripts published in journals. There is, arguably,
no need for an archive to store this material, although there would be
no harm in putting a selection of audio-tapes with transcripts, and
discussion of the methodological objectives of conversation analysis, on
a website as a teaching aid or resource for further research.

Conversation analysis is only one among many research traditions in
the social sciences, and like any tradition can be criticised on
principled grounds. What seems unfortunate about the qualitative
archive, as it has developed in Britain, is that one would not know that
these debates took place, or even that conversation analysis existed,
from the website. The Qualidata site does not explore the possibilities
of archiving audio- or video-recorded data, or acknowledge that there
are different understandings of transcription. Perhaps inevitably,
Thompson as an oral historian equates data with the transcripts of
interviews and focus groups, transcribed for the purposes of analysis in
his own discipline. This is unfortunate since any archive should
represent and acknowledge the diversity of qualitative research,
including conversation analysis (v).

A Visit To The British Archive

To make this discussion more concrete, it seems worth visiting the
British archive, and considering the possible uses of a particular set
of data. To do so, you will need to join the archive, which requires
completing an on-line registration form, and also sending a fax giving
signed consent to the conditions of use. Once you have successfully
registered, you can search the catalogue, and obtain access to the data
in many open-access projects. For others, you are asked to contact the
researchers to explain your purposes. One topic that interests me is
bureaucracy or 'red tape', but these terms do not appear
within the key words supplied by projects (vi). However, when browsing
the abstracts of projects deposited in the last few years, I found a few
about organisational change in health care that seemed relevant. The
most useful or relevant project was data set SN5591, 'What Changes
When Incentives Change in Primary Medical Care, 2005-2006', which
was deposited by Bruce Guthrie of the Tayside Centre for General
Practice, University of Dundee (vii).

The first document I looked at was the contextual statement. You
can get a sense of the methodological assumptions informing the project,
and the bureaucratic procedures involved in preparing data for the
archive, from the contents page:

Although this project did not set out to test a hypothesis, it has
many features in common with research by natural scientists. There is a
concern with sampling, so the interview data is representative, and it
becomes possible to make generalisations from the data. There is also a
concern with maintaining data quality, to the extent that investigators
are asked to sign a legal declaration on the accuracy of transcriptions:

During the course of the study the main researcher proofread all
focus group and interview transcripts in order to ensure that
typographic and grammatical errors were corrected. Corrections were made
using the digital recording that was stored on the main
researcher's computer with the researcher listening to appropriate
sections of the recording in order to ensure that the transcription was
corrected. Prior to depositing the transcripts in Qualidata, the main
researcher carried out a further read-through of all the transcripts in
order to ensure that errors were removed (Contextual statement SN5591:
11).

Although depositors are required to sign this statement for
bureaucratic and legal reasons, the content also commits them to a
particular understanding of social science research (viii). Although
users are invited to challenge the findings of investigators using a
different analytic framework elsewhere on the website, the procedures
and language used in these contextual statements convey a different
message. This is more powerful, precisely because anyone submitting data
is required to complete these forms in a standard way. In completing
these and other applications, the researcher is required to subscribe to
the positivist paradigm, although it should be possible to address and
overcome this problem when designing the Australian archive.

A visit to this data set also helps in making one think about the
interpretive difficulties that arise in re-using data. Thompson (2002:
2) asks whether qualitative sociologists have 'an unspoken
inhibition' against sharing data, or whether 'there are likely
to be such difficulties in using material created by other people that
it is scarcely worth the time to try looking at it?' How one
answers the first question will probably depend on the type of data
collected. Sociologists address all kinds of sensitive topics that
depend on building a relationship of trust. Many researchers argue that
the ethics system, in which participants are asked to sign consent
forms, prevents them from researching these topics. It is, at least in
theory, possible for ethics committees to waive the requirement of
written consent when conducting research (ix). No one seems to have
considered this issue in the case of archiving.

The second question, as to whether it is 'worth the time'
to try looking at other people's data is more interesting. Although
I did not look at all the data deposited from this project, I did find a
focus group in which there were different views of 'red tape'.
My reading of the transcript is that most participants (mainly Scottish
GPs) expressed some scepticism about the administrative reforms examined
in the project. One reports, for example, that:

There is certainly more recognition that you have got to record
things, you have got to be much more organised. A lot of it is delegated
to nurses and chronic disease management is largely run by nurses, with
GP input as you go along. It has got to be much more organised. It is a
lot of what you have been doing already, you are just recording it. You
are basically just sitting there and ticking boxes. The disadvantage is
that it is becoming 'tick-box' medicine (Interview data
SN5591: 3).

There was also a quality manager for a Scottish health board who
seems rather quiet for much of the focus group. However, right at the
end, he or she says:

I think that the best thing for me is that the contract has
provided a data set and really allowed us to celebrate the quality of
general practice which we haven't really been able to do before.
The evidence base is there and now we can shout from the rooftops. And
that is fantastic for Boards (Interview data SN5591: 24).

This data could certainly be used to document the existence of
concerns about "red tape" among Scottish GPs, and a difference
of view between GPs and the quality manager. The problem facing anyone
doing a re-analysis is that the record in the focus group is at some
remove from the practical issues faced by these managers and
professionals in their everyday working lives. Martyn Hammersley (1997:
138-9) makes this point when discussing the strengths and weaknesses of
the data archive:

Exactly this problem arises here. What sense can we make of these
comments, without knowing a great deal more about GP practices in
Scotland, and how they have been affected by the reforms? There is
little indication in the contextual statement that administrative
burdens were a great problem. This is perfectly understandable, since
this was not a central research question in the original study. It does,
however, limit the value of the interviews, observations and focus
groups as re-analysable data. One cannot get round this problem by
saying that we can conduct more research, since the original context is
no longer available.

Conclusion The purpose of this special issue is to consider whether
a Qualitative Archive should be established in Australia. My objective
in advancing some criticisms about the British archive, which seems to
be a model favoured by proponents here, has not been entirely negative.
In contrast to many qualitative researchers consulted in focus groups
(Broom et al 2009), I have no ethical objections.

Even though many would like to abolish the whole system of ethics
review internationally, I expect that many research participants would
agree to sign forms allowing researchers to archive interviews. In fact,
I would support the formation of an archive provided that lessons are
learnt from the British system which has not generated great enthusiasm
among researchers. In the first place, we should be paid for our time in
preparing data. In the second place, the ideological objections reviewed
in this paper can be addressed and overcome if the archive, and any
publicity materials, contained a statement acknowledging the theoretical
diversity of sociological research, and distinguishing this from the
empiricist research conducted for government agencies. This could also
be incorporated into all deposit forms and contextual statements.
Another suggestion would be to establish the archive with an advisory
group, with representatives from different traditions.

There have always been criticisms of intellectual bias, and lack of
vision, on the part of state-supported funding bodies in social science
(x). For a recent example, it is worth reading the recent reports
published by the American National Science Foundation that seek to
improve the quality of applications (Ragin et al. 2004; Lamont and White
2009), and the reply by Howard Becker (2009). While acknowledging that
there are a variety of views in the collections, and that the report is
pitched at an high intellectual level, Becker sees this initiative as
promoting and seeking to institutionalise a narrow view of science:

Many...of the papers...repeat the message delivered by Lamont and
White in the 15 page executive summary and short introduction, which
might be summarised as 'Quit whining and learn to do real science
by stating theoretically derived, testable hypotheses, with methods of
data gathering and analysis specified before entering the field. Then
you'll get NSF grants like us'. Less contentiously, you could
say that the report recommends an unnuanced and incomplete version of
the King, Keohane and Verba Designing Social Inquiry (1994) message:
start out with clear, theoretically anchored hypotheses, pick a sample
that will let you test those ideas, and use a pre-specified method of
systematic analysis to see if they are right (Becker 2009: 2).

Ideally, it would be helpful to have a critical discussion of these
debates in a teaching guide. In this case, empiricist research designed
to produce objective, cumulative knowledge would be presented as one
among a number of traditions, rather than as the only legitimate way of
conducting scientifically rigorous qualitative research. Logically, one
might also want to overhaul the ARC mission statement so that it serves
those doing both academic and policy research, since the data archive
will be part of this system of funding. We will not know for many years
whether storing virtual mountains of raw data with their contextual
statements for posterity in cyberspace will make an important
contribution to sociological knowledge. It does, however, seem worth
investing some effort and thought in developing an archive, even on an
experimental basis, in Australia.

Becker, H. (2009) 'How to find out how to do qualitative
research', International Journal of Communication, 3,545-53,
Available online: http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/550/329, Accessed: May 2009.

Broom, A., Cheshire, L. & Emmison, M. (2008) 'Ethics,
relationship and ownership: dilemmas in qualitative data sharing and the
development of the Australian Qualitative Archive (AQuA)', Paper
delivered at the Australian Sociological Association (TASA), University
of Melbourne, December.

Sommerlad, H. (1999) 'The implementation of quality
initiatives and the new public management in the legal aid sector in
England and Wales: Bureaucratisation, stratification and
surveillance', International Journal of the Legal Profession, 6(1),
311-40.

i The more general issue is that researchers face institutional
pressures to publish and to apply for the next grant. There would be
little incentive to spend time preparing a data set, even if a budget
was allocated for this purpose.

ii For a sophisticated argument, along these lines, see Abbott
(2004).

iii It would be interesting to know if these researchers had unused
material relevant to my research questions.

iv For those concerned about research ethics, this demonstrates,
incidentally, that qualitativeresearchers do not always accept what
their interviewees say at face value. I would not, however, regard this
as raising an ethical problem, since the person who supplied the data
originally, even if he or she believed that it would be used for
particular purposes, does not suffer what could be considered harm.

v Thompson does not simply prefer certain types of data, but has
what sounds like a principled objection to traditions founded on
different epistemological assumptions. He notes that 'the failing
of much qualitative work in the postmodern or narrative modes has been
to make the interactive research process the centre of study in itself,
and forget what can be learnt from the stories that can be re-told'
(Thompson 2000: 12).

vi The principal investigators in an ESRC-funded project were Bruce
Guthrie, Guro Huby and Huw Davies, with help from Suzanne Grant and
Francis Watkins.

vii One reviewer suggested that all qualitative researchers
'take sampling seriously, not because we are aping the rigor of
quantitative analysis, but because we take the rigor of our analysis and
the quality of our data seriously'. You will not, however, find
much emphasis on sampling or rigour in ethnographies by postmodernists.
In some cases the findings are presented as poems (see Travers 2001,
Chapter 7).

viii For some interesting observations on how the audit model
influences data archives, see Hammersley (1997: 136). For a different
way of understanding the objectivity of texts, see Clifford and Marcus
(1986).

ix In Australia, consent can be given in different ways under the
(2007) National Statement depending on the level of risk (see sections
2.2.4 and 2.2.5). Most ethics committees do, however, require written
consent even when interviewing professionals or politicians.

x For a critique of the ESRC in Britain by an interpretivist, see
Watson (2000). For discussion of the institutionalisation of empiricism
in American social science after the second world war, see Mills (1956).

There are multiple typologies for qualitative interviews but very
little consensus among those typologies ... Some interviews aim to
gather descriptive data, more typically with many structured or
semi-structured interviews, whereas other interviews seek to
generate data which probe deeper into the lives of the
interviewees. It is usually possible to identify an interview's
form as structured, semi-structured or open-ended by looking at a
transcript. However, other typologies are derived from
methodological perspectives and it is not possible unambiguously to
classify an interview as, for example, life history, oral history,
or narrative, as these approaches can depend on the analytical
framework applied to the transcript. Each style of interview
creates different types of data and different forms of knowledge,
each requiring a different kind of analysis. In addition to the
different interview types, there are also different types of
sampling procedures, such as random sampling, purposive/quota,
intergenerational, snowball etc., all of which have implications
for the types of analysis and interpretation which are possible
from the interviews (ESDS 2009).

... there is a difference between how ethnographers read the
fieldnotes they have produced themselves, and how someone else will
read them. The fieldworker interprets them against the background
of all that he or she tacitly knows about the setting as a result
of first-hand experience, a background that may not be available to
those without that experience. And much the same problem arises
with other sorts of data, even with listening to audio-tapes and
watching video-recordings that someone else has produced.